Forth and Cart Canal

Forth and Cart Canal
The confluence of the Rivers Cart and Clyde. The canal followed the course of the road to the east of Clydebank College, in the centre foreground.
Specifications
Maximum boat length	67 ft 0 in (20.42 m)
Maximum boat beam	15 ft 0 in (4.57 m)
Locks	3
Status	destroyed
History
Date of act	1836
Date of first use	1840
Date closed	1893
Geography
Connects to	Forth and Clyde Canal, River Clyde

[ ] Forth and Cart Canal
Forth and Clyde Canal Footbridge Forth and Cart Canal Lock Road bridge Staircase locks (2) Footbridge River Clyde River Cart Black Cart Water A8 road bridges White Cart Water M8 motorway Paisley A726 bridge Seedhill Craigs weir Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal

The Forth and Cart Canal was a short 0.5-mile (0.8 km) link canal which provided a short cut between the Forth and Clyde Canal, at Whitecrook, and the River Clyde, opposite the mouth of the River Cart. It was intended to provide a transport link between the town of Paisley, the Firth of Forth and Port Dundas, Glasgow, without having to go via Bowling, some 7 miles (11 km) downstream on the Clyde. The Forth and Cart Canal was closed in 1893. Railway works destroyed most of it soon afterwards.

An Act of Parliament obtained in 1753 authorised improvements to the White Cart Water, to make it navigable, and so assist the developing cotton industry in Paisley. The works included making the channel straighter and deeper. A new road bridge had been built at Inchinnan in 1787, after which Paisley Town Council obtained a second Act of Parliament, to authorise the construction of a new navigable cut, which would pass under the Turn Pike road (now the A8). Work started on 23 August 1787, and was expected to be completed within a year. With the anticipated building of the Forth and Cart Canal, further work was carried out in 1835 to improve the harbour facilities at Paisley. There were plans to make it much deeper and wider in the 1880s, so that ocean-going ships could reach Paisley, but although the work was declared complete on 25 May 1891, the first ship to attempt to use the river ran aground on the opening day, and the scheme was later abandoned.

The River Cart and the White Cart Water provided a navigable waterway between the River Clyde and the centre of Paisley.

The idea of a direct connection between the Cart Navigation and the Forth and Clyde Canal had first been suggested by Hugh Baird in 1799, but no further action had been taken. When the Forth and Cart Canal was promoted in the 1830s, it essentially revived Baird's plan, in the hope that it would provide a better route between Paisley and the Firth of Forth than the alternative which went via Port Eglinton and Port Dundas. Port Dundas was on the north bank of the Clyde, at the end of the Glasgow Branch of the Forth and Clyde Canal, where it joined the Monkland Canal, while Port Eglinton was only a short distance away on the south bank, and was the teminus of the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal. There was no waterway between them and so goods had to be transferred by road.